I had two nicknames in junior high. One was "Goofy Grace," which was pretty accurate, particularly if you've ever watched me try to play basketball, which I did in seventh and eighth grades for reasons that had to do with peer pressure and fear of missing out. The other was "Apolo," a reference to the fact that I was always apologizing. For everything. All the time. Practically every other sentence out of my mouth was, "I'm sorry."
If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you'll know I have used it as a place to work through a lot of different things. Divorce. Being a single parent. Struggles to get my footing in my professional life. Personal and family history. For everything I write here, there are at least three things I leave out. And while I've tried to show that I'm making progress, to document the ways I'm healing and growing, I think there's an undercurrent of apology to a lot of what I've posted here, too. I want that to change. The truth is I have spent a lot of my life feeling like damaged goods. Hell, I am damaged goods. There's no use pretending otherwise. The critical shift lately has been how much less I feel like I need to apologize for it. No doubt I have therapy to thank. And faith, and friendship, and the simple passing of time.
We're all damaged goods in one way or another. It isn't my job to apologize to you for my scuffed and ripped places, nor is it to extract an apology from you for the cracks and worn spots in your heart. My job, as best I can tell, is to sit beside you and say, "Hey--look at us! We made it this far! Now, I wonder where we can go from here..."
Stop apologizing, and just keep living. Sounds all right to me.
6 Comments
Kate
9/23/2018 09:20:44 am
Yes we are all flawed and rough around the edges. Although, we see ourselves as no one else can see.
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Emily
9/23/2018 12:02:17 pm
You're right that every day is a new opportunity to build on what came before. I replied to someone on Facebook that I think what I'm trying to shake off is the feeling that I'm always wrong somehow, or--more to the heart of it--that there's something inherently wrong WITH me. That's what I have to leave behind. I love the thing at the end of Matthew McConaughey's speech (hence the title of the post): that our hero can be a future version of ourselves. Me at 41 apologizes for being myself much less than I did at 31; at 51 I hope to do it even less. :)
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Kate
9/24/2018 04:58:08 pm
At 60 you realize what my mom used to say all the time, “ everyone’s crazy except me and thee but I often wonder about thou!” I refuse to apologize any more. I have done nothing wrong Ad I am a hero to some. The rest, well, they just don’t get it. ;)
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Ward
9/23/2018 08:42:35 pm
I like that there's parentheses here that says comments (required), because I think they should be. People worry way too much about comments. They shouldn't. This was both great and terse. And if it wasn't? There's always the next.
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Karen
9/24/2018 09:43:18 pm
I think I know you pretty well and I don’t know of anything you need to apologize for except being too hard on yourself. You’re great. Now believe it!
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Meet Emily:Mother, photographer, writer. Expert in making things up as she goes and figuring things out along the way. Archives
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